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Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to analyse and discuss the data for subterranean features from Verulamium and its surrounding sites of Folly Lane and King Harry Lane. As such, this case study is different from Silchester and Dorchester, in that the majority of the data for this project have come from sites that are outside of the town boundaries. Thus, the depositional practices of this town are marked by the way that they were enacted mainly within the ceremonial site of Folly Lane. The evidence for subterranean deposits within the town itself was limited. The results from the previous chapters’ analyses of other the other urban centres, Silchester and Roman Dorchester, are incorporated into the proceeding analysis and discussion of Verulamium and its associated sites’ subterranean features. This final case study provides further evidence for inter-urban difference in terms of depositional practices. However, it has also been found that the operational logic of these features of Verulamium and surrounding sites were similar to those from the other towns. This similarity is apparent from the evidence for major shifts in depositional behaviour at this case study, which coincided with other changes to the urban fabric and the site of Folly Lane.

The inclusion of the available data from Verulamium is distinctive because the majority of the features under consideration were located outside the urban boundary. As such, the data from Verulamium is considered differently from the data from Silchester and Verulamium. Although the large part of this database lies outside the urban core, the subterranean features included in the database were located less than a kilometre from the town’s boundaries and were found within a site that was intrinsically linked to the town itself. Indeed, the ritual site of Folly Lane is thought to have been so important that the town was planned and developed according to the location and alignment of the ceremonial site (Creighton 2006, p.125) (see Figure 56). The Folly Lane site was the location of the cremation of an unknown, high-status individual around AD 55 (closely following the time of the Claudian annexation of Britain) (Niblett 2004, p.32). The cremated person was likely one of Rome’s friendly kings or was

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either a successor or relative of one (Niblett 1999). Over time this site was the focus of a number of ongoing ritual acts that worked to commemorate the cremated individual and/or symbolise the associations of the person with time and place in the surrounding landscape (Niblett 2004, p.35; Creighton 2006, p.127). The ceremonial function of this site did not end with the funerary rites, as it is thought that by the Antonine period it had become a significant cult centre (Niblett 2004, p.38). It is possible that another aspect of this ceremonial site/cult centre was the series of subterranean features located there that incorporated special deposits and were in use from the second century AD until the late third century AD (see F133, F134, F135, F136, F137, F138, F139, F140, F141, F142, F143, F144, F145, F146 in Appendix 8).Important for this thesis is the fact that this site was the ‘focal point for an enduring cycle of ritual acts which did not just occur within the enclosure itself, but framed the very geography of the city below’ (Creighton 2006, p.127). This raises a number of questions about how processes of urbanisation are interpreted with regards to ‘pre-Roman’ notions of place and the significance of meaning already present within the landscape prior to the development of Roman towns in Britain (following Rogers 2008). Verulamium provides a useful case study which contributes to the research aim of this thesis regarding urbanisation and how to define this process with regards to the wider landscape of Roman Britain. These broader issues of processes of urbanisation and cultural change are addressed below in Chapters Six.

The methodology for this chapter follows that of Chapters Two, Three and Four. The objects and materials deposited within the features under consideration were counted based upon their appearance (in any number or quantity) across all of the give features of Verulamium and its immediately surrounding sites. If a particular animal species or object was deposited in high numbers within any given feature then this has also been noted, but the number of individuals was not included so as not to bias results.

Archaeological background

The site of Verulamium was a large Iron Age settlement prior to the establishment of the Roman town. The pre-conquest site was the main centre of the Catuvellauni. There is evidence for a ditch underlying parts of the later town. This ditch was possibly the remains of an enclosure of a chief religious sanctuary of the tribal group. The foremost insula of the town was built on the site of what may have been a primary place of sanctity within the pre-Roman settlement forming part of the territorial oppidum of Verlamion (Niblett 2004, p.32; Wacher

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1995, p.216). As already outlined above the ceremonial site of Folly Lane informed the developing spatial geography of the Roman town as, ‘its position on a prominent slope, close to the main route into the oppidum, appears to have been deliberately chosen to overlook the centre of the pre-Flavian settlement’ (Niblett 2004, p.32). In the central region of the town there is evidence for a large ditched enclosure which may have been the site of a ritual enclosure or a royal residence (Niblett, Manning & Saunders 2006, p.53). It has also been thought that a small Roman military fort may have existed within this sector of the town but is still unproven (Niblett, Manning & Saunders 2006, pp.61-63).

New walls were constructed around the town sometime at the end of the third century and consisted of a bank fronted by a masonry wall which was in turn fronted by a ditch system, and were probably the first physical boundaries of the town that covered the river frontage. The walls probably incorporated five known gates (Wacher 1995, p.232). The ribbon development along the Silchester road subsequently ceased after the construction of the town wall (Wacher 1995, p.241). It is also significant that the later third century town wall acquired the addition of two monumental arches (Frere 1991, p.245). Such an addition is indicative of some level of prosperity and pride within the town, and would not appear to indicate modifications associated with a need for defence. The significance of the late third-century town walls is discussed more closely below in this chapter in relation to changes to the Folly Lane and the cessation of depositional activity there which occurred around the same time.

The town incorporated large, good quality housing composed mainly from bricks and mortar, clay and flint and tiled roofing (Wacher 1995, p.235). During the later second century the densely occupied areas of workshops and commercial shops were replaced by ‘larger and more luxurious town-houses’ (Frere 1991, p.234). A similar process also occurred at London where previously cramped commercial quarters were replaced by widely-spaced large houses displaying a degree of opulence. In order to contextualise the special deposits of Verulamium it is critical that during the third century the pattern of increasing affluence of individual houses and the lowering of density within the town can also be traced within this urban space. These larger and relatively elite structures in Verulamium were of a distinctly Romano-British type that had evolved differently to the more ‘closely planned’ houses of the classical south (Frere 1991, p.238). Between AD 215-240 construction was completed on a number of substantial private houses (Frere 1991, p.245), demonstrating that a sector of the population of third century Verulamium were enjoying a degree of prosperity. The more prosperous sector of the population however did not appear to engage in munificence with little evidence for

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‘competition for honour’ within the town’s fabric (Creighton 2006, p.130). Although the Catuvellaunian civitas has evidence for villa construction, there are not many in close proximity to Verulamium itself. This could indicate that a significant number of landowners had lived in and carried out the running of their estates from the town (Wacher 1995, p.241). Alternatively, Creighton suggests that the prominent family that probably held successive leadership within the town may have lived at nearby Gorhambury villa (2006, p. 130). The town itself, the Folly Lane site and possibly Gorhambury villa (which had been constructed within a prominent Later Iron Age enclosure) formed places for the living and the dead and reinforced the ancestral bases for power and resource ownership of the urban-suburban network of Verulamium. There is evidence that the town continued to function as an urban space well into the fifth century AD with ongoing reconstruction of buildings using tile and mosaics (Frere & Witts 2011).